GetJar and Billing Revolution Looking to Stop Developer High Way Robbery

I have often been accused of being a GetJar.com fanboi, but it is because they keep giving me reasons to pick up my pom-poms. In a press release issued a few days ago, GetJar talked about their team up with Billing Revolution and some pretty impressive conversion rates they were experiencing through the Papaya Mobile social gaming network. Here is a quote about the conversion rates:

GetJar is achieving surprising first-time conversion rates of 34 percent and second transaction conversion rates (single-click enabled) of 72 percent using a billing solution of their choice, Billing Revolution’s Single-Click Checkout for several of its Android titles on GetJar

The conversion rate information alone is something to get excited about as a developer, for sure. But GetJar and Billing Revolution sweeten the deal with what percentage they charge developers of their revenue for their apps compared to the Android Market or the Apple App Store. Both Google and Apple take up to 30% of a developers revenue, which is pretty steep if you ask me. GetJar and Billing Revolution? Zero percent. They don’t take a cut of a devs money, but rather charge a flat rate per transaction or download. There are a lot of small, solo developers out there that are struggling to make ends meet, and a policy of a flat rate probably sounds pretty good to their ears. A quote from the press release talking about fees:

“GetJar’s goal is to empower developers to make more money in our app store, which is why we never take a cut of the developer’s revenue and we let the developer choose the billing partner that works best for them,” said Patrick Mork, CMO at GetJar.

and

“We think a 30 percent rev share by Google and Apple is robbery – we charge $0.15 per transaction,” says Andy Kleitsch, CEO of Billing Revolution and its proprietary Single-Click Checkout service. “We’re excited to put more money in the pocket of developers

It looks like both GetJar and Billing Revolution have a unique plan to help everyone make their fair share of revenue from an application download, and are trying to halt the highway robbery of app developers who are forking over serious cash to have their apps published to the Market or App Store. I for one am glad that at least with Android, we have a choice of using any app store we want (unless you are an AT$T customer, the dollar sign is not a mistake btw).
If you are a developer for Android, go check out what GetJar has to offer you, if you are an end user of applications, go and support what GetJar is doing by shopping some apps!

10% is their take on their new web-based subscription service for digital publications. Android Market has always been 30%, most (all?) of which goes to carriers.

John Loschky

This assumes of course that you are distributing through the Android Marketplace.

getjar noobs

I have a question that might help getjar noobs. . .

Please tell us how getjar monitors potential virus infected apps and pirating in their app store. Since there’s been all this news about Google’s Android Market lately. . . how does getjar handle these same issues.

Thanks

http://twitter.com/chuckfalzone Chuck Falzone

On a $1.00 app, $0.15/transaction is 15%. Which is the better deal comes down to whether 85%* of X is more than 70% of Y. *Or other %, depending on price of the app.

Given the much, much wider use of the Android Market, it’s going to be the better choice for apps with a cheaper price.

Though of course, developers don’t necessarily have to choose– they can distribute in both places.

John Loschky

Hi Chuck,

The economics are impacted at the extremely low end price points. Interestingly enough, most of our app developers have an average sales price above $12. The margins at this level are extremely attractive to our existing developer base and a key driver for many developers evaluating the platform.

John Loschky
Single-Click Checkout

http://twitter.com/robisaks Bob

I have yet to figure out how to post an app that I can charge for on GetJar…I’ve only been able to post ad supported apps.

http://www.supermerlion.com Raddreamer

This might help it serve as a more attractive publishing means especially for start ups.